fiction genres
Novel type labels
Fiction genres are categories that classify stories by their subject matter, setting, or emotional effect.
The major genres include mystery, romance, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and thriller, though countless subgenres exist: cozy mystery, paranormal romance, hard science fiction.
Genre conventions create reader expectations—a romance promises emotional satisfaction, a thriller promises tension.
Literary fiction is sometimes distinguished from genre fiction, though the boundary is contested.
- cozy mysteryLow-violence amateur sleuth genre
- locked room mysteryPuzzle with no evident escape
- bildungsromanFiction of psychological maturation
- new adultSomeone recently adulthood-aged
- space operaDramatic sci-fi in cosmos
domestic drama · steampunk · magical realism · cyberpunk · alternate history · psychological thriller · cosmic horror · body horror · historical drama · urban fantasy · romantic comedy · dystopian · slice of life · chick lit · gothic romance · paranormal · grimdark · teen drama
- Novel Historynovels, novellas, historical novel, historical novels, bildungsroman
- fictionnovel, novels, novella, novellas, short story
- storytellingstorytelling, story, tale, narrative, narrator
fiction genresnonfiction genres
Categories of true prose
journalistic writing · academic disciplines · historical accounts · biographical works · reportage
fiction genresscientific writing
Formal communication of research
legal documents · business writing · medical literature · true crime · creative nonfiction
fiction, fictions, fictional, fictionally, fictitious, fictitiously, fictionalize, fictionalized, fictionalization